


The Darkest Night

by Matthew_Kane



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Conspiracies, F/M, Fantasy, Humor (But don’t get your hopes up), Magic, People die when they are killed (but not always), Romance, sci fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-25 13:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matthew_Kane/pseuds/Matthew_Kane
Summary: “Keep your eyes trained towards the future” has always been a popular motto amongst the Alnoans. A reclusive species living at the edge of the explored universe, they have supposedly always relied on technology and progress to thrive, caring little for their largely unknown history.Now, however, four young Alnoans stumble upon an ancient secret, buried just beneath the surface, a secret that could spell destruction, not just for their entire civilization, but for the rest of the universe as well.This knowledge leaves them little choice but to band together, and embark on an intergalactic quest of epic proportions, a race against time, to rebuild the crown of Genesis; the only artifact powerful enough to bring them salvation in their time of need.With uncertainty of survival, and a dark, primordial shadow looming over them, will they make it through the darkest night, or succumb to its wicked grip?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for picking up this story. Considering this is my first original work, there might be many flaws scattered throughout the upcoming chapter, ranging from faulty pacing to grammatical errors. I will try to weed them out in time, and maybe look for a beta reader. In any case, feedback (be it good or bad) is always appreciated. That being said, I’d like to thank you again for giving this a try, and hope you’ll enjoy this chapter.

**Zarvion, The Wicker's Forest, 19:34 PM**

**-Mefira-**

'Why did I think this would be a good idea?' She lamented as she ran, narrowly dodging yet another projectile.  
Sparing a quick glance behind her, she could see an entire squadron of stone golems preparing a new round, ripping chunks of rock out of the ground and taking aim.  
Gathering up a fireball in her own hands, she quickly chucked it at one of the things, relishing in the sound of the small explosion upon impact.

Getting ready to dodge again, she was a bit taken aback at feeling a strong gust of wind and seeing the new volley fly back towards the attackers.  
Moments after, Xenos popped up on her left, giving her a jaunty salute and a cheeky grin.  
The girl just rolled her eyes at him, before yelling over the deafening rumbling behind them:  
"Could you please save the flirting for when we're not in mortal danger?"

The male just gave a short laugh, before deflecting another volley. For all his bravado, Mefira could see his labored breaths. With every deflected attack, the gusts of wind grew weaker. She knew that using his magic was taking a serious toll on him. The same went for the flames currently flickering around her, voraciously devouring her energy reserves.  
Still, seeing the ship up ahead , waiting for them gave her enough hope to push her limits. She could hear the engines, ready to take off as soon as they were inside.

They were so close.

Looking backwards once more, she froze up when she saw a dark form practically oozing out of the ground behind the golems, gradually taking on a barely humanoid appearence, tatters of...something fluttering from random parts of its half formed body. Clawing at the ground, it turned toward them, revealing a pair of empty purple eyes that seemed to zero in on her specifically. She felt as if something was gripping her eratically beating heart, the icy claws of fear instantly dispersing the now weak flames flickering around her fingers. The creature gave her what might have been a triumphant grin, but it was almost impossible to tell with the jagged, oozing crack across its face that only barely resembled a mouth. She hadn't even noticed that she had slowed down, until she heard Xenos shout from somewhere up ahead:

"LOOK OUT!" His face was distorted in panic, only making the thing behind them give a screeching cackle.  
Glancing upwards, she saw an immense boulder flying straight towards her.

**2 months earlier...**

**Fancy meeting you here**

**Alnoa, Sector 14, 14:50 AM**

**-Mefira-**

"And if you listen closely, you can hear the engine sputtering; an obvious sign that there is a problem with the fuel line." Their mechanics teacher, droned on, causing Mefira to inwardly groan. How long was this going to take? Glancing at the clock, she saw that they only had about 10 minutes left before class ended, though it didn't necessarily provide any comfort. If there was one thing she had learned in school, it was that time was relative. 'Very relative', she thought, trying to think about one of the newest movies coming out that weekend, even if just to take her mind off her current predicament. Unfortunately, while her mind was wandering, she had failed to noticed Mrs. Treol slowly stalking towards her.

"Miss Bael!" she snapped jolting her out of her daydream, "would you care to repeat what I just explained to the rest of the class?"  
Great... The girl thought. Couldn't leave me alone for ten more minutes, could you? She wracked her brains trying to remember whatever boring tidbit the woman at the desk had oh so generously bestowed upon them.

"Umm... The engine...has to... Like... Sputter in a certain way for it to work properly?"  
Judging from the giggles coming from several other students, and Mrs. Treol's annoyed glare, she had definitely screwed up.

"Wrong, Miss Bael. Maybe you will be able to remember today's lesson if you have a nice, quiet environment to study in. Like detention. For a smart girl like you, I'm sure it won't take more than four hours." the woman spoke, a malicious glint in her eye.

Mefira barely held herself from screaming in frustration. This was the third time this week. Her parents weren't going be happy. But then again, they hardly were with anything she did these days.

Was it really her fault if she couldn't concentrate on all the technological stuff they learned day in and day out at school? As the old hag went on about next week's assignment, Mefira tiredly laid her head on her desk, wondering again how this was her life.

Mefira made her way to the appointed classroom, mentally preparing herself for a few hours of pure boredom. Opening the door, she could instantly see that the usual culprits were already there.  
There were only a few students who regularly wound up in detention, and it seemed that they were all in their regular places today.

"Have they read you your rights?" Zera Amel asked, giving a sardonic grin. Mefira took a couple of seconds to study her appearance. Long, straight, hazel hair, with the ever present purple strand tucked behind her right ear.  
Her eyes, bearing the same color as her streak, were dull with boredom, but still held a glimmer of mischief.

Mefira had always wanted to have purple eyes, instead of the light pink color she was sporting.  
But, like her mother said, pink was the color any true lady should display.

Talking a moment to analyze Zera's clothes, she could see the girl had her her trademark ripped jeans on, along with her black hoodie and combat boots, giving her the look of someone you would usually find threatening people at knifepoint in a dark alley. 'Which for all intents and purposes she probably is' Mefira thought to herself.

Seeing her dainty form, however, made a lot of people underestimate her.  
Not to mention several guys at school that used to follow her around.  
'Used to' being the key words here.  
Zera had made it brutally clear she wasn't interested in dating.

"Let me guess; the toilet paper incident this morning was your doing?" Mefira asked, carding a hand through her own wavy golden locks. Zera was notorious for her pranks that usually got out of hand.  
"You know me so well." she responded, her grin turning smug and self satisfied.

At the desk behind Zera sat Magnus Neryl, who usually wound up in detention for doodling sketches of plants and animals during class instead of paying attention.  
The teachers always confiscated his holopads, but he had plenty of spares. Already he was hard at work drawing an image of a firefly flower, and writing down some of its characteristics.

Hunched over his desk, he looked rather ridiculous with his body mass dwarfing the small table and chair.  
He had the appearance of a jock, with a built physique. This was usually accentuated by a tight shirt and equally form fitting pants. Dark hair framed his handsome face, and intense forest green eyes were filled with concentration on the drawing.

Still, the effect was lost when you actually got to know him.  
He was rather scatterbrained, losing focus on anything not related to biology or medicine.

And as far as Mefira knew, he was a total klutz in anything from sports to day to day activities.  
She lost count of how many times he'd tripped when one of his shoelaces got untied.

Still, she liked him. Out of all the people she knew, he was the only one that at least gave off the illusion of normalcy. She respected that.

And finally, there was Xenos Nuran. The person most likely to take up the career path of a cat burglar.

He usually got detention for sneaking around everywhere he wasn't supposed to.  
From the teacher's lounge -where he stole the subject for a final and distributed it to the whole class-, to the principal's office, where he actually took a picture with the man sleeping, then posted it on the Extranet.

He had slightly curly platinum blonde hair, with gray eyes, and a lean build, sporting black pants along with a white T-shirt that hugged his body quite nicely, and a pair of comfortable sandals, that helped him walk quietly on multiple occasions.

"And here I was wondering how photos of the girl's locker room ended up online." she muttered as she passed him, only receiving an unrepentant bark of laughter and a wink in return.  
"At least I didn't post any photos of you, princess. I gotta have some class." he defended good-naturedly, fiddling with a blue stylus.

Admittedly, these were not the kind of people Mefira would have usually befriended. Partly because she felt more than a little uneasy around them, but mostly because her parents wouldn't exactly appreciate her consorting with what they considered to be 'citizens of the lower class'.

And yet, despite all their flaws and downright creepy behavior, as well as her parents' views on the matter, Mefira could honestly say that these were her only actual friends, who didn't think of her as a dumb blonde, who didn't know how an engine works. It's not like she even had much of a choice inbefriending them. It was either talk to them or the potted plant in the corner of the room. The plant had died in the first weeks she had started coming there, so it hadn't even been much of a choice.

As she sat down, she noticed the robot standing in front of the holoboard, set to automatically activate when detention would start.

"Wait, didn't you wreck two of these things already?" She asked, confused. It was incredible how Zera could destroy something, and then make it look like a complete accident.

"Yeah, but they got a new and 'improved' version. One that's apparently impervious to 'random malfunctions'." Xenos answered.

"By now, 'malfunction' is pretty much codename for 'we know you tampered with it but we have no proof'." Magnus absently commented, not looking up from his drawing.

"You'd think they would just place a teacher here instead." Mefira mumbled.

"Please!" Zera huffed a laugh "No sane person would hold out being in a room with all of us for this long."  
"True" she conceded.

As the bell rang, the robot powered up, fixing them with a blank gaze.

"Greetings, juvenile delinquents. I am disciplinary automaton version 3. You may refer to me as DA-V3, or Dave. Please take your seats, and keep quiet. Detention will end in: 3 hours, 59 minutes, and 40 seconds."

"Well, looks like it's gonna be a fun couple of hours..." Xenos growled under his breath.


	2. Chapter 2

**Alnoa, sector 14, 15:54 AM**

**-Zera-**

Whoever built this thing really knew what they were doing. After almost one hour of staring, with nothing but the sounds of Magnus stylus gently scratching the surface of his holopad filling the empty silence, Zera still couldn't find any blind spots to get to that thing's control panel and scramble it.  
She was starting to get frustrated. No machine was perfect. It had to have some kind of design flaw she could exploit.

Though she wouldn't admit it with a gun to her head, these machines seriously creeped her out. They looked just like any other alnoan, with the exception of their eyes, which were always a glowing blue.  
This one was no exception. With its buff structure, and neatly combed, synthetic blue hair, it pretty much looked like any girl's dream guy.  
Still, the effect was ruined by the one piece mechano fiber suit it was wearing, as well as the hollow look in it's eyes.  
And of course, the name. Dave... What kind of name was that? Where did its builders even come up with that one? "Excuse me, Dave." she said, raising her hand.

The robot directed its attention towards her. "I need to use the bathroom." It narrowed its eyes at her, the blue glow turning green, before returning to their original colour.

"Physiological scans indicate that your bladder is nearly empty. There has been no fluid consumption in the last 3.4 hours, and there is thus no need for liquid waste evacuation.  
Furthermore, solid waste evacuation has taken place 4.2 hours ago, and will only occur again in 23.3 hours."

"Well that's messed up..." She heard Mefira mumble, and Xenos give a quiet snigger.  
"Please retain silence, otherwise I will take disciplinary actions."  
Like she said; seriously creepy.

A thought then popped into her head on where a possible weak spot might be. Raising her hand again, she stated in the most innocent tone she could muster:

"Excuse me, Dave, there seems to be some sort of insect on the wall behind you. I think it's a fire stinger."

Fire stingers were nasty things. Their venom was potent enough to send a fully grown alnoan into anaphylactic shock.  
No self respecting teacher  
(or supervisor drone) would have dismissed that comment, however improbable it may have been.

The robot quickly turned its head, running scans for the insect, giving Zera just enough time to spot a small glowing dot behind it's left ear. The neural impulse core. Cleverly hidden. One stab with a stylus there, and the blasted thing would shut down for good.

Just as she was about to take a chance and jump DA-V3, the ground began to shake. These tremors weren't something unusual, so she just waited for it to pass, cursing her bad luck.  
She began to worry though, when it got stronger, as objects started to shake on the shelves. One of the cheap decorative vases on the teacher’s desk fell and shattered. She could see Magnus peeking up from his work, slight surprise in his eyes. The tremors didn’t usually last this long. This one, however, only seemed to get stronger.

Pretty soon, it started to feel that the entire planet was being violently shaken, thin cracks appearing on the outer walls.

"Tremor intensity exceeds 4.5 on Branner scale. Emergency protocols enabled. Please exit the room in an orderly fashion." Dave droned.

Though slightly worried, she consoled herself with the knowledge that they’d get the rest of the day off, as was protocol when an unusually strong tremor took place in the area. 

The drone opened the door, as Mefira made her way towards the exit.

 

Suddenly, the ground gave a particularly violent shake, causing a section of the wall right across from them to collapse.  
The beginnings of a crevice appeared in the floor. The teens jumped back towards their seats, scrambling to get away from the now expanding crack in the ground.

"Everybody stay where you are!" Zera shouted, seeing the crevice begin to open up, blocking their path to the exit.

"Behavior unacceptable. Initiating forced evacuation procedures." Dave stated, making his way to them.

"Wait! Don't!" she shouted, but was ignored. The crevice widened even more, the tremors tilting the robot off balance just enough for it to fall into the ever growing pit.

She could hear Mefira shouting, and as she turned, she saw Xenos dragging Magnus towards the far end of the room. She quickly made her way there as well, hoping that the quake would stop before they got swallowed up.

"We have to do something!" The green eyed Alnoan shouted, clutching his holopad to his chest.

"What _can_ we do?" Mefira shouted back hoarsely. "We're cornered!"

Zera felt panic seize her, her mind unable to cope with the knowledge that she was going to die. All because of a stupid stroke of bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time.  
Unshed tears moistened her eyes as she pictured her parents for one last time. She couldn't imagine what her mom would go through when she found out what happened here.

Finally, the crevice reached them, and she could feel herself falling, could hear the screams of her friends as they plummeted towards certain death.

Everything went dark.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Alnoa, sector 14, ??:?? ?M**

**-Xenos-**

Alnoans didn't really have a spiritual culture, and thus no actual Underworld. Still, Xenos didn't think that the place where people went after they died was a dark and musty cave, where the only sound was the dripping of water off the stalactites.

  
Sitting up, he looked around to see the others sprawled inelegantly near him, unconscious, but definitely still alive, judging by the rhythmic rise and fall of their chests.  
Looking closely, he could see Magnus eyelids fluttering open, which not only raised the question of how they had survived all over again, but also where the light was coming from that helped him to actually see anything at all.

Picturing the crevice like he saw it above ground, he knew it had to be at least 500 feet deep, and thus almost devoid of light. They shouldn't be alive; let alone unharmed and in no pain.

Still, from what he could see, aside from some dust on their clothes, there were no injuries, or any signs of internal damage.

  
"Where are we?" The larger of the two mumbled sleepily.  
"At the bottom..." Xenos answered, trying to shake Mefira awake. As the girl slowly cracked her eyes open, a shrill scream echoed through the crevice, making her flinch.

  
Looking for the source of the sound, they found Zera, who was desperately scrambling towards them, looking as if she saw a ghost. "What is it?" Xenos asked, squinting to see what had scared her.

Then he saw it. DA-V3 had also made the landing, seemingly undamaged, and was now staring with offlined optic sensors towards the spot where Zera had been laying just a minute ago.

  
"What just happened?" the hoodie clad girl asked shakily. "Didn't we just-"

"I think we did..." Mefira answered, searching her now dirty sundress for any tears.

Xenos inwardly groaned. Of course the first thing on her mind would be if her clothes were alright. Girls. Who gets them?

"So, where is this light coming from? Some kind of tunnel to the surface?" Magnus asked, but Xenos only shook his head.

"At this depth, there shouldn't be any light."

"Too bad they took away our communicators in detention." Magnus lamented, but paused when he saw a glint in Zera's eyes.

  
"That gives me an idea!" she said, making her way towards DA-V3, and prying open his control panel. "These things are equipped with a beacon, in case of an emergency. If I can just... Oh!"

"Good 'Oh' or bad 'Oh'?" Mefira asked from the side.

"Bad 'Oh'... It looks like something fried Dave's circuitry on the way down. It's busted."

  
"Well, since there is light, we should follow it. It's not like we have any other option. Maybe they dispatched a rescue team somewhere close by. I heard they tend use floodlights in these situations." Mefira said, getting up and dusting herself off. One by one, they rose, and began stepping one after the other towards the source of the light, which seemed to reside about a hundred feet up ahead, through a decently sized passage.

 

Still, they sometimes had to squeeze themselves through a tighter spot, making Xenos bemoan his choice in footwear, as his sandals kept getting stuck in cracks, and were regularly causing him to stumble.

Suddenly, he stopped, Magnus bumping into him.

"What's wrong?" he asked

"Didn't you hear something? It sounded like hissing." Xenos asked, hearing Magnus huff a laugh.

"Don't worry. Those are just rollers. You know; those green tubey animals that coil themselves up and roll on the ground. They can survive underground too, or wherever they find insects to eat."

  
"How many do you think there are down here?" Xenos asked.

  
"It could be an entire colony. We should step carefully. Some of them might be sleeping in cracks around here. They have a vicious bite."

Soon enough, they seemed to be closing in on the source of the light. Struggling to squeeze through one last narrow passage, Xenos soon found himself gaping at one of the strangest things he had ever seen.

 

A gigantic, ancient looking pyramid, multi tiered and covered in vegetation stretched out in the vast cave in front of them, surrounded by tall stone walls, a bright white glow emanating from a single point at its very tip. The whole complex was suspended over a huge, gaping pit, a stone bridge leading to its entrance. Cryptic runes were etched across the walls, none of them in a language he could understand.

 

"What is this place?" Magnus asked bewildered, slowly exiting the passage along with the others. As Zera squeezed herself through, Xenos saw her drag something behind her, and was soon met with Dave's unnerving, hollow stare.

  
"Why the heck did you bring that thing along?" he asked, falling back a step, very much unsettled by the drone's resemblance to a cadaver. Not that it was too difficult picturing the girl hauling a dead body around.

  
"Figured I might get him working again. He can still be useful."

Giving a snort of amusement at Zera's weird fixation with the thing, he turned towards the pyramid.

"So do we go in?" the grey eyed Thrassian asked.

Magnus was about to give a reply, when suddenly, a violent hiss was heard, much louder than earlier, coming from the tunnel behind them.

"Rollers?" Zera asked, edging away from the tunnel entrance.

As Xenos stepped closer, and peered together with Mefira into the suddenly shadowed pathway, he found that he couldn't make out anything worth noting.

He was about to turn away, when Mefira yanked his wrist, and, with a shaking hand pointed towards a specific spot in the passage.

 

There, almost perfectly camouflaged against the rocks was a large shape, clinging to one of the cave walls, unmoving and barely noticeable. It was large, two or three times bigger than Magnus, with a a barely humanoid aspect. The head was malformed and bat-like, housing glittering red eyes, and a large maw that sprouted countless jagged teeth, too big to properly fit, giving it the aspect of a perpetual, sickening grin. The ears were extremely large and seemed to twitch at the slightest sound. It’s claws resembled daggers in their length leaving cracks where they met the cave wall. It seemed to be staring straight at him, sizing him up. 

Then, as if just noticing that it had been found out, it let out a deafening screech that echoed across the cave.

 Xenos felt his blood run cold. He remembered how close the hissing sounds had been earlier. Had that... Thing been following them since they fell in there?

The echo didn’t seem to stop, and with rising dread, Xenos realized that it was being repeated from different places across the tunnel, again and again, long after the monster had quieted down.

Looking past it, he could now make out an amalgam of similar shapes savagely crawling along the walls and the ceiling towards them, maws filled with the same needle like teeth dribbling saliva, glowing eyes fixated on him and Mefira.

"Those aren't Rollers!" Mefira whispered, horrified, stumbling away from the tunnel.

The other two gave them looks of horrified confusion, but upon spotting the first creature crawling through the pathway, they scrambled backwards.

"We need to go! Now!" Xenos shouted, breaking into a run.

No one objected, all of them bolting towards the temple. The hissing and screeching increased to intolerable levels, the echo in the cave giving it an even more terrifying note. Throwing a look behind him, the grey eyed alnoan saw the creatures getting closer, darkness engulfing the light that had previously filled the cave.

Still, the temple shone like a beacon ahead of them, and Xenos could already spot the entrance. The light seemed to be standing it's ground, forming a barrier against the shadows at the building's perimeter. They were so close. A couple more steps and-

  
Suddenly, a loud thump was heard, the sound washing over Xenos like a container of ice cold water. He looked around. Mefira was here. So was Zera and her robotic 'friend'.

Magnus!

Where was he?!

He looked behind them, only to see the male sprawled on the floor, a pitch black, clawed hand grasping his ankle.

"MAGNUS!" he shouted, reaching out to him.  
Still, he wasn't fast enough. The darkness kept expanding, and more of those things kept popping up everywhere.  
He was helpless to do anything as he watched it pull Magnus into the shadows.


End file.
